Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: A History of the Mary Tyler Moore Show (52 page)

“you never hear people say”
: Marcia Seligson, “Being Rhoda Is No Joke,”
McCall’s,
January 1975.

cover of
Ms.
magazine
: Gloria Steinem, “An Interview with Valerie Harper,”
Ms.,
May 1978.

had just opened in 1972
: Comedy Store, Club History,
http://hollywood.thecomedystore.com/page.cfm?id=872.

Leno would soon meet David Letterman
: David Letterman, Museum of Broadcast Communications,
http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=lettermanda.

Led Zeppelin, the Who, and the Rolling Stones
: Andaz West Hollywood, Hotel Overview,
http://www.westhollywood.andaz.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels-westhollywood-andaz/index.jsp?hyattprop=yes
.

chapter 11. pot and the pill (1972–73)

“As a writer and producer”
: Norman Lear on Business, Politics, and Culture,
http://normanlear.com/backstory_speeches.html
.

first won approval
: “The Birth Control Pill,”
Embryo Project Encyclopedia,
Arizona State University,
http://embryo.asu.edu/view/embryo:123917
.

Time
magazine cover story
:
Time,
April 7, 1967.

“Now she’s aggressively feminine”
: Bill Davidson, “
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
—After Three Seasons,”
TV Guide,
May 19, 1973.

“In the romantic glow of sunrise”
: Lehman,
Those Girls,
p. 149.

producers decided to nix a dialogue
: Ibid., p. 150.

“It was awfully old-fashioned”
: Ibid., p. 155.

Two CBS affiliates
: Bruce Weber, “Bea Arthur, Star of Two TV Comedies, Dies at 86,”
New York Times,
April 25, 2009.

“Maude is commercial TV’s first striking manifestation”
: Shirley, “Sexism on Television Crumbling in Laughter.”

“We’re not
Maude
”
: Davidson, “
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
—After Three Seasons.”

“The show is opening up”
: Kerwin, “Can You Find the Boss in This Picture?”

“Be careful”
: Davidson, “
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
—After Three Seasons.”

“I think women are okay”
: Kerwin, “Can You Find the Boss in This Picture?”

Conference on Women in Public Life
: Gloria Steinem Papers, 1940–2000, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA.

“I’d like to ask each of us”
: Original recording courtesy of Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA.

“compromised and contradictory feminism”
: Bonnie J. Dow,
Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement Since 1970
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), p. 51.

“girl-next-door sweetness”
: Ibid., p. 25.

“she hardly ever gets to write the news or report it”
: Judy Klemesrud, “TV’s Women Are Dingbats,”
New York Times,
May 27, 1973.

“challenging the family system”
: Caroline Bird, “What’s Television Doing for Fifty Percent of Americans?,”
TV Guide,
Feb. 27, 1971, quoted in Serafina Bathrick, “
The Mary Tyler Moore Show:
Women at Home and at Work,” in Joanne Morreale, ed.,
Critiquing the Sitcom: A Reader
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003), p. 158.

chapter 12. the georgia and betty story (1972–74)

like she was starting her career all over again
: Cecil Smith, “After 25 Years, the ‘Real’ Betty White,”
Los Angeles Times,
Dec. 21, 1973.

“I don’t think I should”
: Moore interview, Archive of American Television.

cook to handle dinner
: Kerwin, “Can You Find the Boss in This Picture?”

the emptier it became
: Moore,
After All,
p. 121.

she’d wave to Tinker
: Grant Tinker,
Tinker in Television: From General Sarnoff to General Electric
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 123.

one of the few people Moore had felt comfortable opening up to
: Kerwin, “Can You Find the Boss in This Picture?”

moved into a new Bel Air home
: Tinker,
Tinker in Television
.

chapter 13. girl, this time you’re all alone (1974)

had existed since at least 1941
: John Dunning,
On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 293.

used the hiatus
: William Glover, “Change of Pace Role for Valerie,”
Hartford Courant,
March 17, 1974.

“a friend”
: Steinem, “An Interview with Valerie Harper.”

making twenty-five thousand dollars a week
: Seligson, “Being Rhoda Is No Joke.”

hated talking or thinking about money
: Steinem, “An Interview with Valerie Harper.”

sent her a gift
: Kerwin, “Can You Find the Boss in This Picture?”

sneaked back over
: “Rhoda and Mary—Love and Laughs,”
Time.

size fluctuated enough
: Valerie Harper,
Today I Am a Ma’am
(New York: HarperCollins, 2001), p. 38.

Tinker was so uncharacteristically anxious
: “Rhoda and Mary—Love and Laughs,”
Time.

“It would have been”
: Clifford Terry, “Psyching Out Bob Newhart,”
Chicago Tribune,
Sept. 23, 1973.

“a neatly balanced show business cartel”
: “Rhoda and Mary—Love and Laughs,”
Time.

“I’m thirty-three”
: Ibid.

raked in three hundred thousand dollars per year
: “Hollywood’s Hot Hyphens,”
Time,
Oct. 28, 1974.

more than 50 million
: Rick Mitz,
The Great TV Sitcom Book
(New York: R. Marek, 1980), p. 350.

shot by two men
: Michael Newton,
The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes
(New York: Facts on File, 2009), pp. 87–88.

“Barbara stories”
: Harry F. Waters, “TV’s Fall Season,”
Newsweek,
Sept. 8, 1975.

could spend hours debating
: Ibid.

grossing more than $20 million
: Goodman, “TV’s Reigning Queen.”

chapter 14. the best job of their lives (1975–77)

got ready to hit the stage
: Elizabeth Peer, “The Rating Game,”
Newsweek,
Oct. 13, 1975.

“I don’t like having to write down”
: Susan Harris biography, Paley Center for Media,
http://www.shemadeit.org/meet/biography.aspx?m=32
.

“look like the Gestapo”
: Benjamin Stein, “The Old Taboos Fall, One by One,”
Washington Post,
Sept. 19, 1975.

“I think of commercial television like Times Square”
: Harry F. Waters, “Why Is TV So Bad?,”
Newsweek,
Feb. 16, 1976.

received two thousand complaints
:
FCC Report on the Broadcast of Violent, Indecent, and Obscene Material,
Feb. 19, 1975.

In a December 1974 letter
: David Black, “Inside TV’s ‘Family Hour’ Feud,”
New York Times,
Dec. 7, 1975.

“set television back drastically”
: Waters, “TV’s Fall Season.”

Lear joined with
M*A*S*H
producer Larry Gelbart
: Black, “Inside TV’s ‘Family Hour’ Feud.”

In October 1975
: Andrea Jane Grefe, “The Family Viewing Hour: An Assault on the First Amendment?,”
Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly,
Fall 1977.

“If the networks were to make a sincere effort”
: Black, “Inside TV’s ‘Family Hour’ Feud.”

Nielsen reported
: Waters, “Why Is TV So Bad?”

“I’d like to thank a lot of people”
: “CBS Under Pressure,”
Forbes,
June 15, 1976.

“Yes, this is a creatively healthy move”
: Moore,
After All,
p. 5.

Moore thought the idea was divine
: Ibid., p. 235.

stopping occasionally to laugh
: Christopher Lloyd, “Veteran Sitcom Writer David Lloyd,”
Entertainment Weekly,
Dec. 4, 2009.

“It was the first time”
: Mary Tyler Moore, “David Lloyd,”
Time,
Nov. 30, 2009.

Ken Levine was in the studio audience that night
: Ken Levine, “In Memory of David Lloyd,”
http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2009/11/in-memory-of-david-lloyd.html
.

“It was not only a very funny show”
: Cecil Smith, “Altering the Asner Image,”
Los Angeles Times,
Nov. 7, 1975.

“In another moving and improbably funny show”
: “Victorious Loser,”
Time.

“bittersweet riot”
: Tom Shales, “The Mary Memory Tour,”
The Washington Post,
Feb. 18, 1991.

“a classic”
: Bruce Cook, “Now Women Are Calling the Shots,”
Newsday,
Nov. 19, 1978.

Moore still wasn’t sure
: Moore,
After All,
p. 238.

Moore’s half filmed on the set
: Ibid., p. 351.

“In many places”
: “Victorious Loser,”
Time.

chapter 15. leaving camelot (1977–present)

“The
Taxi
group”
: Kenneth Turan, “On His Own ‘Terms,’ ”
Film Comment,
March/April 1984.

“Ed Asner finally brings something fresh to the beat”
: Harry F. Waters, “Eyeballing the New Season,”
Newsweek,
Sept. 26, 1977.

cover of
Time
magazine
:
Time,
Aug. 13, 1979.

“fast and funny”
: Janet Maslin, “Burt Reynolds as Unmarried Husband,”
New York Times,
Oct. 5, 1979.

“Take that nap”
: Turan, “On His Own ‘Terms.’ ”

“one of the more promising”
: John J. O’Connor, “TV: Comedy of Divorce,”
New York Times,
Sept. 29, 1983.

Paramount sent him
: Turan, “On His Own ‘Terms.’ ”

“uncastable”
: Stephen Farber, “Comedy Buoys ‘Terms of Endearment,’ ”
New York Times,
Nov. 20, 1983.

After the New York Film Critics dinner
: Turan, “On His Own ‘Terms.’ ”

split with his partner of twenty-seven years
: O’Neill, “The Court Files.”

chapter 16. making it on their own (1977–present)

Polish immigrant barman
: Burt A. Folkart, “ ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ Newscaster,”
Los Angeles Times,
Aug. 27, 1986.

didn’t know what to do with herself
: Moore,
After All,
p. 238.

“Mary’s not a Lucille Ball”
: Thomas O’Connor, “Mary Tyler Moore: ‘I’m Not an Innately Funny Person,’ ”
New York Times,
Dec. 8, 1985.

“That was tough”
: Kliph Nesteroff, “The Early David Letterman,” WFMU,
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/03/the-late-night-hosts-before-they-were-big.html
.

“sit-var”
: Moore interview, Archive of American Television.

“the dark side”
:
Ordinary People
entry on Turner Classic Movies archive,
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/18955/0/Ordinary-People.html
.

“I guess he was right to wonder”
: Cole Kazdin and Imaeyen Ibanga, “Mary Tyler Moore: A Career Retrospective,” ABC News, March 31, 2009.

“self-expectation”
: Moore interview, Archive of American Television.

took on extra significance
: Moore,
After All,
p. 265.

remained in New York City
: Ibid., p. 275.

when he treated her mother
: Ibid., p. 313.

a drink or two before dinner
: Louise Lague, “Addicted No Moore,”
People,
Oct. 1, 1984.

read about Elizabeth Taylor and Liza Minnelli
: Moore,
After All,
p. 351.

“social drinking”
: Lague, “Addicted No Moore.”

“I’m not an innately funny person”
: O’Connor, “Mary Tyler Moore: ‘I’m Not an Innately Funny Person.’ ”

White had watched
Star Trek
: Betty White,
Here We Go Again
(New York: Scribner, 1995), p. 206.

“My name is Ed Asner”
: Ed Asner, Museum of Broadcast Communications,
http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=asnered
.

“the Jane Fonda of Latin America”
: Pete Hamill, “What Does Lou Grant Know About El Salvador?,”
New York,
March 15, 1982.

At the Church of the Recessional
: “Laughter Wins over Tears at Funeral of Ted Knight,”
Eugene Register-Guard,
Aug. 29, 1986.

epilogue: mary, rhoda, and the modern girl

seventy-five-member crew
: “Recreating History,”
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Recreating-History_1/11
.

when she tried to get a good table at a restaurant
: O’Connor, “Mary Tyler Moore: ‘I’m Not an Innately Funny Person.’ ”

if it wasn’t funny
: Moore interview, Archive of American Television.

Time
magazine cover story
:
Time,
June 29, 1998.

visibly excited
: Moore interview, Archive of American Television.

plans came together in 1997
: Frank DeCaro, “Mary and Rhoda,”
New York Times,
Dec. 29, 1997.

“This was one of those cases”
: “Mary, Rhoda Are Dead,”
People,
May 17, 1999.

doing her own stunt
: James Poniewozik, “Doing Less With Moore,”
Time,
Feb. 7, 2000.

“Rhoda, you haven’t changed a bit”
: Phil Gallo, “Mary and Rhoda,”
Variety,
Feb. 6, 2000.